Sherlock Holmes and the Ghosts of Bly

13

As the sky warmed into a pale yellow summer dawn, we stood like men awaiting a funeral cortège, solemn but without a show of personal grief. Two labourers appeared. One of them carried an iron winding-handle which opened and closed the sluice at the far end of the lake. When opened, this would lower the water by several feet, into a stone channel down to the Bly river. By midmorning, a wide band of dark clay along the banks lay uncovered. The rumble of water down the chute had fallen to a murmur.

The treachery of the Middle Deep was plain. A floor of mud sloped gradually from the bank for ten or twelve feet. Abruptly it became steeper. At the lake’s centre, the undercurrents that were created by diverting the river water had created a weed-filled ravine. Somewhere in the cold depths of this Major Mordaunt presumably lay in a clinging shroud of water weed.

A flat-bottomed wherry had been brought up from the Bly river on a trailer. It had been launched and now lay in position above the Middle Deep. The rope of a drag stretched out behind it. Inspector Swain’s commander, Superintendent Truscott, seemed to take pleasure in predicting that to trawl such contours as these would be a long and difficult job.

Contrary to my expectations, Mordaunt’s waterlogged boat had not sunk entirely. It wallowed becalmed with the rim of its hull just above the surface. The little craft was light enough to float when waterlogged, where a heavier and more businesslike ferry might have gone straight down. The two men in the wherry had attached a line to the rowing-boat’s painter and paid it out to the others on the bank. Like competitors in a tug-of-war, Alfred Swain’s constables took the strain and heaved the submerged hull gently into the shallows from which the water was receding.

“Don’t count on seeing Major Mordaunt for a day or two, Mr Holmes,” said Truscott morosely, stamping his feet and rubbing his hands as the boat was hauled in. “You can’t drag a lake bottom as steep as that one. Best let him pop up of his own accord. They all do so, sooner or later, once the gas starts to lift them. It won’t do for the coroner, though. That’s the difficulty.”

He walked off towards Sergeant Acott, presumably for the satisfaction of repeating to him what he had just said to us.

I had not seen Alfred Swain for more than an hour. He was no doubt in conference with the local coroner. A gravelly-bearded man in a dark suit, driving a horse and trap, certainly had the appearance of an officer of the court.

An inquest could come to only one conclusion. If ever there was a case of justifiable homicide I supposed it must be this. Mordaunt had proved himself an experienced shot, even in the half-light. His first aim had missed Sherlock Holmes by only a few inches. He had been given two chances to lay down his revolver and had declined both. Without Swain’s presence of mind and unexpected marksmanship, my friend would have stood no more chance against the second bullet than a duck in a shooting gallery.

It transpired that Alfred Swain was the only man to have drawn a firearm—and the last whom I expected to be carrying one. At eleven o’clock that morning he reappeared at last, riding a grey mare. Behind him a farm wagon carried a boat not much larger than Mordaunt’s but somewhat more sturdy. Such craft were generally on call to country police forces for use in rivers and reservoirs. The consequence was that each force had to take what it could get.

Two long planks were drawn down from the tail of the wagon to the mud of the bank.

“Mr Holmes!”

“Mr Swain?”

Swain walked closer.

“We can cross to the island, sir, if you would care to go. Before the county sheriff and others get here, perhaps you—and Dr Watson, if he wishes—would like to see for yourselves.”

“Major Mordaunt’s private kingdom?”

“If you were to do it, Mr Holmes, I think it had best be done without further delay.”

In plain English, once Superintendent Truscott’s guests arrived from Abbots Langley we should have as much chance of investigating the pleasure island as Adam and Eve had of returning to Paradise. What debt from the past did Alfred Swain owe to Sherlock Holmes that it should be repaid so amply now?

“There are boots on the wagon, gentlemen.”

We sat on a felled tree trunk and pulled our waders on. Our ferry boat was in the water. Supported by constables at either arm, we edged down a slippery plank and clambered over the stern of the hull. Swain took the opposite seat as oarsman in the bows.

The inspector was a quiet man by nature, son of a Dorset village schoolmaster, as Holmes later told me. It was still hard to say whether he was shocked or serene in the aftermath of Mordaunt’s death. As we were crossing the calm lake, he spoke softly—to us or to himself.

“What possessed him to stand up in the boat? Surely he knew he would swamp it!”

It seemed to me an eminently sensible comment, but that was all by way of conversation until we reached the island shore. We waded across some fifteen feet of mud before coming to a crude plank slipway. I thought that a man who brought a woman here would probably have to carry her ashore, establishing an intimacy from the first step. However, if anyone had been here for many months, there was little sign of it. A path had been trodden long before between laurel bushes and yew but the banks of brambles and nettles in flower were now badly in need of clearing.

The so-called Temple of Proserpine was no more than a few minutes’ walk from the water. With its single gable, it suggested a garden bungalow on an Indian tea plantation. Shutters were locked over the glass panels of its two double doors and there was a fixed window at either side of them. It might very well have served as a cricket pavilion, its front quite forty feet wide. Most of the original top coat of white paint had peeled away, leaving a cream undercoat with patches of bare, silvered wood.

Such was Mordaunt’s rendezvous with his female companions. Perhaps it was also a conveniently secret spot where he met Peter Quint to trade gold for bank-notes. So long as he had the only key to the shed where the oars were kept, he was master of either situation. This lawn was where Miss Temple had first seen Maria Jessel. I thought how easily a tragic boating accident might have been arranged for Miles and his governess as they wooed their ghosts!

Swain made no objection when Holmes opened his useful pocket-knife to deal with the lock. Then he drew apart the shutters and opened the glass doors. Dappled sunlight through the glass revealed a dilapidated lounge equipped with bamboo furniture and scattered cushions. It was flanked by two smaller rooms on each side. The whole place was a tribute to the colonial tropics, familiar to three generations of the Mordaunt family. Against the far wall stood an upright Broadwood piano in tortoise-shell lacquer, no doubt a memento of lanterns, parties and music on summer evenings! Holmes touched the keyboard casually. Half of the notes were now dumb and several of them sank down, never to rise. It had served no purpose for many years.

“One hesitates to condemn any musical instrument as beyond saving,” said my friend casually, “yet I fear this must be so.”

Before I could say that Mordaunt should have jumped at the chance to have the wreck dismantled and removed on the cattle raft, as Mrs Grose described it, my companions moved on.

A smaller room with two wall-mirrors and a miniature dressing-table had presumably been set apart for female guests. Another, on the far side, had a leather chair and a table—perhaps this was the counting house where Mordaunt and Quint exchanged coins for bank-notes. A shelf in the adjoining room held a flame-darkened primus stove and rusted tins labelled for tea, sugar and coffee. Holmes made a little routine of opening the drawers in the furniture and closing them without finding anything of interest. Or so it seemed. Standing in the mirrored room with his back to Swain, he “palmed” a small bottle from the dressing-table drawer. It had a cosmetic or theatrical look about it.

I could not see that there was anything here for us. Only the broken-down piano, retained for no obvious use, seemed worth my friend’s inspection. Holmes stooped and used his pocket-knife blade to loosen a screw under the keyboard so that the pedal-board might be lifted out. This revealed only the iron frame with its strings and the pedal mechanism. Straightening up and lifting the top, Holmes then peered down into the musty space of felted hammers and treble wire. Shaking his head, he closed the lid and turned away.

As though it were a last resort, he dropped down on one knee and unfolded his pocket magnifying-glass to examine the wooden floorboards just in front of the two foremost casters.

“Most curious,” he said quietly, folding the glass and returning it to his watch-pocket. “Unless the instrument is lifted a little, the weight on the casters is bound to mark floorboards of softwood timber as it is moved over them. In this case, it seems that the right-hand caster alone has been moved repeatedly in a brief arc. Put more simply, someone who had no companion to help him lift the weight from the boards has had to pull the right-hand side of the piano from the wall on numerous occasions. Two men would have been able to lift it clear of the boards. Why did he always do this alone—and so often? It is a small matter but well worth our attention. This particular model of the Messrs Broadwood has a very substantial iron frame. Perhaps, Mr Swain, you would be kind enough to assist me.”

The inspector eased his right arm and the edge of his shoulder into the narrow gap between the back of the tall piano and the wall.

“You will find, Mr Swain that there is a hand-hold about halfway down. I shall lift from under the keyboard.”

Holmes drew the piano carefully forward. The floorboards at the far end groaned as the left-hand brass casters ground into them. A few seconds later the right-hand end of the upright piano was at a slight angle to the wall, revealing the back of the instrument.

The structure was not solid, as I had supposed. A fine wire mesh on a wooden frame fitted into the back of the instrument and was screwed into place. It required only the loosening of half a dozen screws to remove it. This was done easily with the edge of a penny coin.

Once the mesh on its frame was lifted out, I doubt whether, even among pianists, many knew that their instruments had a concealed recess below the strings. It was large enough to hold a book or even a small painting, though its original intention was presumably to house furniture polish, dusters, methylated spirits and all the essential cleaning materials for rosewood, brass, ivory and ebony.

When I saw what lay in this recess I knew we were on the right road, though I could not yet tell where it led! It was a large steel key. Only the man who put it there would ever have looked for it in such a place or even have known that such a recess existed. It was plain at a glance that the key did not fit any door or item of furniture around us. In the first place, it was too old.

I guessed that it had not been made in the last forty years. It was about four inches long, the oval of its handle decorated with filigree work of mid-century. Holmes held it in his hand and intoned two lines from his store of street literature.

“My name is Chubb, that makes the Patent Locks;

Look on my works, ye burglars, and despair.”

Then he gazed about him.

“Up there, I think,” he said presently. “There is nothing down here worthy of it.”

An inspection-trap was recessed in the centre of the main ceiling, giving access to a loft or roof-space. It seemed the only place where there might be a lock to match the key. Holmes stared at it.

“A curiosity of the deviant mind, Mr Swain, is that a man who works to frustrate detection invariably draws his pursuer onto a trail pointing the way he has gone. As if the poor devil wanted to be caught.”

“I can’t see that here, Mr Holmes.”

“Can you not, Mr Swain? Of the garden sheds, only one was locked. How could it fail to attract interest? It contained a pair of sculls. Had it not been locked, they might not have signified. The need to make the only boat unusable by all but one person gave them importance. No one could cross to the island without Mordaunt’s authority. On our arrival here, what do we find? A piano whose voice is defunct, which might have been removed on several occasions but was kept here by his orders on at least one occasion. The damage to the floorboard indicates that the only function of the poor voiceless instrument was to be moved to and fro at frequent intervals, making the right-hand side of its back accessible. It beckons the investigator to that hiding place behind the covering of metal gauze.”

“But if you are correct, Mr Holmes—”

“I am, Mr Swain. One more thing, however. No matter how thoroughly this room might be searched, the piano with its iron frame could be moved only by someone with sufficient strength.”

“Excluding Maria Jessel and, for that matter, Victoria Temple,” I said suddenly.

“Precisely. Now, if you please, gentlemen, there remains the inspection hatch.”

“We had best proceed quickly, sir.” Swain glanced at the window, as if expecting Superintendent Truscott’s shadow to fall across it. “I can hold you standing on my shoulders if you can balance there, Mr Holmes. You could easily reach the ledge of the hatch. I am a little younger and therefore can bear your weight easily.”

“Younger, and therefore had better stand on my shoulders,” said Holmes peremptorily. “The greater strength will be needed in pulling up through the hatch.”

“As you wish, sir.”

With a balance that might have graced a circus acrobat, Swain crouched on my friend’s back in stocking’d feet as Holmes straightened up. The inspector’s soles and heels moulded themselves to the changing posture until he had only to lift his hands and push the white-painted trap aside. He pulled himself up and slid into the roof-space.

“A main beam and a rope attached to it, Mr Holmes. He probably pushed the trap up with a pole and hooked the rope down. He might nudge it closed afterwards and take the pole with him. Stand away a little, if you please.”

A length of knotted rope swung down, hanging level with our knees. It was a simple device that every scouting party in rough terrain would be familiar with. In my training for Afghanistan, I should have thought nothing of climbing it. Now I was not so sure.

Holmes stepped in front of me.

“Wait a bit, Watson!”

He took the rope between his hands, locked his feet on the lowest section and swarmed up as if he had done nothing else all his life. I followed, standing on the knot and holding as high as I could.

“Grip tight and hold, sir,” said Swain quietly. Then I was guided by either arm to the safe flooring of the attic. Light through a rear dormer window was quite enough for our investigation.

Disused garden furniture made up the lumber, except for a military travelling chest of dark, varnished elm. This was some four feet long by two feet wide and eighteen inches deep. Its dark lacquer was scratched and worn, as if from campaigning. At the centre of the lid, in a scroll of dim red letters, I read “J. Mordaunt, M.D., Netley.” How well I knew that design! It was almost a twin to the one which accompanied me to Netley barracks as a newly-qualified physician beginning my regimental training, twenty years before.

Holmes was on his knees, inspecting the keyhole with its old-fashioned ornamental plate. It was surely a match for the key. My friend scrutinised the floorboards at the front of the box.

“No one has opened this for some months. Possibly not since Miss Temple’s trial.”

“You are sure?” I asked.

“Once the poor young woman was locked away in Broad-moor, believing gratefully that Mordaunt had saved her from the gallows, the evidence ceased to matter to him. See here. There is an infestation of woodworm—furniture beetle—in the rim of the lid. The eggs are laid in existing holes by the adult beetle during the autumn, usually in September. The larvae eat their way out in the spring—April or May, as a rule. The powder—the frass—is undisturbed in this case. Mordaunt thought he had all the time in the world. That was very nearly the truth. Casual neglect of this sort—postponing the destruction of evidence—has proved fatal even to some of the great criminal minds. Mordaunt was not remotely of that first rank.”

He turned the key and raised the hinged lid. The interior had been divided, as usual, into shelves or trays which could be lifted out in turn. It was by no means full. The upper level contained a leather case for a razor, another for two silver-backed hair-brushes and what I can only describe as cosmetics, to judge from a faint odour of the barber’s saloon which emanated from the dark bottles. A second layer held two silk shirts, a port-wine cravat and a green waistcoat with a pattern of fleurs-de-lis. Such a style, once fashionable among young men at Oxford and Cambridge, had not been seen for ten or fifteen years, except on such occasions as Miss Temple confronting Peter Quint through window-glass or upon a garden tower.

The deepest tray had room for a jacket and breeches of brown Norfolk cut, equally suited to gamekeeper or village squire. The clothes were a perfect match for those “borrowed” by Quint to be handy with the village girls, as Mrs Grose put it, and to adorn Miss Temple’s vision. From among the hair-brushes and treasures of the dressing-room, Holmes picked up the reddish brown brush of a small fox, or so I thought.

“A hunter’s trophy!” I said casually.

“My dear Watson! In all your medical experience, did you never see such a piece, affected by men who have lost their own hair?”

I never did. But I was looking elsewhere.

“Look in the box, Holmes.”

“You have truly not seen a wig such as this one—unmistakably of Quint’s colour, as it was described to us?”

“Look in the box!”

He stopped and looked down. There it was. The case was leather. It might have held a large-sized pair of field-glasses, but its shape was square and not long. The leather was stamped with a War Department “crow’s foot” and a simple inscription: “R. J. Begbie & Son, Woolwich, Field Heliostat, Standard Issue.”

It was surely the glass that had blinded Miss Temple as she came face-to-face with Maria Jessel. Only James Mordaunt would have been likely to conceal it among the costume pieces for his masquerade as Peter Quint. And who but Quint’s murderer would be in possession of the hair-piece worn by the man that evening in full view of a score of people but missing from the body when it was found a stone’s throw away?

Holmes returned the items, locked the box and gave the key to Alfred Swain. The young inspector must now take the credit for these discoveries on the island. Holmes was insistent upon that. As we crossed back over the Middle Deep, he repeated for Swain’s benefit, “It is the most humble inconsistencies which are frequently the evidence of major crime. I commend the thought to you, Mr Swain.”

Swain bent his back to the oars and said, “I have never doubted it, sir.”

“Good. When you make your report, let it be terse and to the point.”

“Indeed, Mr Holmes.”

“The facts are these. The world knew it was Peter Quint’s body lying dead on the bridge that winter night because Major Mordaunt told them so. After that, what remained of Quint became the property of the coroner’s officer and the anatomist from Chelmsford. They knew him only as a corpse. They did their duty meticulously, every item of evidence was accounted for. They did not inquire for a missing hair-piece. Why should they? They knew nothing of its existence. Those villagers who merely saw his body laid out would hardly be surprised if it was not still in place. Yet its absence, a stone’s throw from where he was seen wearing it, further suggests that he cannot have died at the bridge—therefore not in an accidental fall. Miss Jessel has told us the truth if anyone has.”

“Then it just amounts to the hair piece, Mr Holmes?”

“What it amounts to, Mr Swain, is that Mordaunt killed Quint. Within a day or two, Maria Jessel left for her holiday, during which her death was reported. She was carrying Quint’s child. Thus we have one singular incident coming close to the heels of another singular incident. So close, in this case, that she and Mordaunt were privy to them both. It does not make her party to Peter Quint’s death. There is nothing against her on that but her unsupported statement. There is conclusive evidence against him.”

That afternoon, Mordaunt’s boat was pulled on to dry land. Several fittings, including both oars, had floated clear as it settled in the water. The oarsman’s seat had gone and two of the footboards across the bottom of the shell were detached. Superintendent Truscott was occupied elsewhere and Swain stood over the wreck. While we waited for the hackney carriage to take us to the train at Abbots Langley, Holmes carried out a discreet inspection.

With the two footboards gone and the hull drained, the cause of the catastrophe seemed clear. Mordaunt had not thrown the boat out of balance by standing up or as his pistol recoiled.

“The plug in the drainage hole at the bottom of the hull was forced in by a rush of water,” said Holmes casually. “See for yourself, Watson. That is quite apparent as the cause of the boat settling in the water.”

I cast myself as the schoolboy oarsman I had once been.

“In a boat of this sort, the plug is hardened cork and conical-shaped so that an inward pressure of water would force it all the tighter.”

“Indeed it would,” he said placidly, “unless it had been tampered with.”

“Tampered with? How?”

“Look at the convex shape of the drainage hole. If a bung were mutilated, or reversed, or in any way loosened, it would yield to the pressure of water and sink the boat. This craft certainly did not tip over or flood as a result of Mordaunt’s antics. It foundered under a weight of water below the footboards. The bottom of the boat had been flooding gradually ever since he pushed it out into the shallows. As the weight increased, his progress became slower, precisely as we saw.”

I stared at it and shook my head.

“Come, Watson. It may simply have been removed. If I were the killer, I should prefer if possible to fit the plug so that it would not give way completely until he got above the Middle Deep. A reversal of its position, ideally. I doubt that the major had bothered to take up the boards and inspect the bung when he had the hounds at his heels. Even if I am mistaken in that, at a glance it would seem intact. Especially in the half-light.”

I had stopped listening to him. Was this the plan Mordaunt had laid?

“It sounds to me, Holmes, more like the boating accident that might have overcome Miles and Miss Temple as they yielded to a beckoning ghost. Perhaps, by some evil irony, his own method was turned against him.”

But Sherlock Holmes had already turned away and was indicating the waiting carriage

It was half an hour later when we paid off our driver in the cobbled forecourt of the railway yard at Abbots Langley. The express was not due for twenty minutes. As we stood talking on the platform in the sunshine I was aware of distant hoof-beats, a rider approaching at a canter. The sound died away and presently the tall neatly-suited figure of Alfred Swain came down the steps of the bridge. So far as he could ever be, he seemed a little excited.

“They’ve found him, Mr Holmes! Major Mordaunt. Just under the ledge of the Middle Deep. The bullet had clipped him at one side, enough to knock him into the water. After that, it seems he drowned!”